Sunday School - The Roman Catholic Controversy - Part5

Let's stand this morning as we sing to the Lord. Holy. The Protestant side says, we believe in the gospel according to the scriptures. The other side says, we believe in the gospel according to the scriptures and.

Right? So this topic is really important because it delves down to the issue of authority. Who defines what? Roman Catholics and Christians, we all use essentially the same vocabulary. We have words that we share in common because of the common heritage of the faith and also because of the scriptures.

So we talk about Jesus, they talk about Jesus. We talk about the gospel, they talk about the gospel. We talk about justification, they talk about justification. But when we boil it down to these terminologies that we're using, we actually have different definitions.

Now this is not uncommon. This is true of every cult as well. And people will get upset when you call Roman Catholic a cult, but it certainly is a cult definitionally. It has one central head figure. It also goes against the Orthodox Christian teachings of the Bible.

So I would categorize it as a cult, a very big cult, the largest cult actually in the world, but it's nonetheless a cult. While also still being one of the great religions of the world, but still a cult nonetheless.

And you have in this dialogue between Roman Catholics and Protestants kind of an impasse because of how and who gets to define these definitions, such as justification, such as the gospel, and of course when it goes into Christian dogma and specific particular doctrines of the Bible, who gets to determine the true teaching of such matters.

The Council of Trent and the Authority to Interpret Scripture

So we're going to delve a little bit deeper into this subject. I think it would be helpful if actually we allow, we went and did some reading in the chapter, because he quotes from some notable sources here, including the first one, the Council of Trent.

And so let's look at that first quote from the Council of Trent in the fourth chapter of this book. It says, Furthermore, to check the unversed spirit, it decrees that no one who relies on his own judgment shall matters of faith and morals pertaining to the edification of the Christian doctrine, the story of the Holy Scriptures in accordance with his own conceptions, presume to interpret them contrary to that sense which Holy Mother Church, to whom it belongs to, judge of their true sense and interpretation as held and holds, or even contrary to the unanimous teaching of the Fathers, even though such interpretation should never at any time be published.

Let's stop there for a moment. That's kind of a lot of jargon there, but what's the sense that statement in Trent is making? What is it trying to get across?

That no one is able to interpret the Scriptures on their own, that the Church is the one that says it, and even though they're never going to publish exactly what it says, that's what they're saying. To some degree, yes.

To some degree.

Anyone else? Let me just ask this overarching question. Any specific things that stood out to you in this week's reading? Any questions you may have arisen during the reading of this week? Very important.

I think it's probably the most important chapter we've read so far, certainly.

It does talk about that every believer is responsible before God to, you know, interpret the Bible and know it. That's right. And that's what it says. That's why all the chaos, that's why all the conflicts and fighting, because they can't.

You know, they have no authority. Maybe just let me know when you decide what it says.

That's true. And that's something we're going to delve deeper into in just a little bit. Sarah?

On the next page on page 46, it was interesting that he points out that the Roman Catholic Church, not only do they say the Church can interpret the Scripture, they're saying that it's only the Church that tells us that Scripture itself is inspired.

Like, we know that Scripture is infallible because the Church tells us so. But that's a weird step backward, because how do we know the Church is infallible? Right. You know, it feels like we as practitioners have a circular argument saying the Bible is true, the Bible says the Bible is true.

But you have to end it in a circle, otherwise you just end it like a never-ending series of backward hops to the next infallible thing. That's right.

And if the Church basically, in terms of authority, to be able to decree that the Bible is inspired, then where does the Church get its authority? It has to be outside of the Scripture itself. Right. So it's a very interesting conundrum that they put themselves in when they make such statements.

That's a good point. Anyone else? Anything that stood out to you? Yes. Well, then I guess what's not appropriate is you supporting Church followers. Is that a question? Yes. So what's the appropriate use of quoting Church Fathers?

Is that it? I think the Church Fathers have a lot of value. I think one of the things that is wrong with this chapter, of course, is that I think the statement is made to the effect that, well, the Catholic Church is true because it holds, at least to some degree, to what seems to be the mainstream view of the early Church Fathers.

Like, Trulia, Ignatius, Augustine, all these individuals. I would say it's actually the opposite. You know, if you look at, delve deeper into the early Church Fathers, you'd see a lot of the frequencies that we're going to go on to today.

And on top of that, I always say this, the Church Fathers, especially the pre-Nazism Fathers, were kind of like a YouTube comment section. They just had every stinking view under the sun, and there was no cohesiveness.

One of the things that they did have in common was the interpretive power of the Church. And I don't disagree with that. In principle, I don't think Protestants disagree with that in principle either, and that's why we hold to a confession, right?

We hold to a confession because we believe that godly people who have come before us have examined these things, weighted these things, and that their examination of these things should be considered in faith and practice.

Not that they are absolute authorities in the interpretation of Scripture, but rather that we acknowledge that people who have come before us have delved into these matters, probably much deeper than anyone today has.

You know, when we look at the early Reformers, we tend to think of people in those time periods as uneducated, but I'm telling you, these people were far more educated. Who here can speak, you know, five languages?

All right? You know, these kids were being homeschooled, and they were learning Latin and Greek, you know, by the age of five. And so these people were far smarter than we were in some respects. So, yeah, that would be my answer is that, you know, I wouldn't rely too much on the church fathers.

They are helpful. Just as the creeds are, just as the confession is, they can give great insight, but I don't see them as being the interpretive power of the church. The Scriptures are sufficient. That's what we're talking about later.

You got something to add to that, Pastor? All right. Any other thoughts or questions on the reading before we go a little deeper into the teaching? It's certainly an interesting reading this week. Now, when Trent, when the Council of Trent comes together and they say, listen, you knuckleheads cannot interpret Scripture by yourselves.

You need Mother to do so. Now, who's Mother? Church. The church. Man, there's so many, you know, I just have to bring this up because of my personal experiences. There are so many similarities between Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics that's scary.

The reason why it's scary is because Jehovah's Witnesses hate Catholics. Like, they see them as like mortal enemies. And I remember I had a Jehovah's Witness pal in my congregation when I was a Jehovah's Witness, and we went out to field service preaching.

That's what they call it, field service. And I remember him for like just the whole time of us knocking on doors, him just talking about how he really, he hates Roman Catholicism because he grew up Roman Catholic.

He didn't go, oh, it's the horror of Babylon, it's this, it's that, it's all these crazy things. You know, Roman Catholics, he's like, you know, I know we're supposed to be, you know, forgiving, but I just can't forgive the Pope.

If I saw the Pope, I'd give him a piece of my mind, all these things. And I was like, all right, man, take it easy. Let's try to share good news here. But, you know, and that's not uncommon. There's a lot of Jehovah's Witnesses who absolutely hate Roman Catholics.

But the irony of it is that they are very similar. So when it comes to their freedom of authority, the organization of the Watchtower, which is the governing organization of Jehovah's Witnesses, they have what's called a governing body.

And the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses dictates faith, life, and practice for all eight million Jehovah's Witnesses worldwide. They're the publishers of Watchtower magazine, publishers of all their publication books where they receive new life, information, doctrine, dogma, and all those things get funneled into the hearts and minds of Jehovah's Witnesses through the governing body.

And the governing body says that the organization of the Watchtower is what they call mother. And so growing up, I knew that we had, okay, Jehovah's our father, Jesus Christ is the son of God, but the organization is our mother.

It's the instrument that God is using to nurture God's people. And so we looked at the organization as a very motherly figure. Same thing in Roman Catholicism. Roman Catholicism sees the church, the institution, the organization, as our mother.

The Roman Catholic Church says that the church itself is the interpretative power, namely Bess of the Pope. The organization of Jehovah's Witnesses says that the organization alone is the interpretative power, specifically through the governing body or the faithful discreet slave.

You used the term mother. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

It's in their publications. They don't use it much today because I think they figure it sounds pretty weird. But they have some pretty weird interpretations of the Bible generally. So for instance, in 2 Corinthians chapter 12, we ran over that several weeks ago in our home groups, but there's a vision that Paul talks about, right?

He says, when the body of God is blind and unknown, he sees things that are inexpressible. He's caught up to the third heavens, the paradise. Right? Remember that? Here's how the Jehovah's Witnesses interpret that verse.

If you don't believe your eye and eye, you don't. Paul doesn't join the heaven, actually. What he actually sees in that vision is God's organization that's a spiritual paradise. And all the cohesiveness and brotherhood and the peace that exists between the organization and the brothers, that's what Paul saw.

He was looking forward to the organization headquartered in Brooklyn, New York. Yeah. I thought he was looking at Brooklyn. Yeah. And so that's how they interpret it. Now, you know, my sister went before I had a letter to the Lord several years ago.

And as we were talking about it, I'm thinking, well, who can interpret the Bible? Who has the authority to interpret the Bible? I'm like, Liz, do you know how they interpret this verse in Scripture? I'm going to read it to you.

This is the verse. And then I'm going to give you the last explanation. And I said, can you imagine your first century Christian reading Paul's letter? And you're like, that's it. That's what Paul's talking about.

He's talking about Brooklyn, New York. He's talking about the Watchtower. He's like, that would be the furthest thing from my mind. That's not what he was talking about. So when you kind of bring it to those really, you know, palpable terms, and you really put some good hermeneutics next to Jesus into the text, you can start showing people, okay, well, that's pretty ridiculous.

Same thing with Rome. Because Rome makes similar claims. They are saying, this is talking about us, the institution, the pope, all things which are foreign to the New Testament writers. There's no such thing as a pope to the New Testament writers.

There's no such thing as a mother church. You know, the only time there's a reference to a mother, it's kind of like Jerusalem. And it's contrasting the relations formed between King R, the promise of slavery, and the free woman.

This is talking about, you know, essentially the elect and the un-elect. It's talking about God's salvation to his people. It's not talking about there's actually a mother in heaven, or an organization that's motherly, that's nurturing God's people.

This is talking about, you know, the destinies of two distinct peoples. And so, you know, there'd be a very wrong interpretation. There's another group out there that believes in a mother God. And they're becoming quite popular.

They're a Southeast Asian movement. And they believe in this mother God woman, or, you know, theory that God has actually comprised of also God the mother. It's very strange. But I remember a lady at the drive-thru back when I was, you know, young, restless and informed.

And at the drive-thru, I was like, oh, evangelized to the lady who was on the other side of the drive-thru. And I'd say, you know, I'd give my order. And I'd say, hey, do you know about Jesus? And then when we pulled up, she says, do you guys know about Mother God?

I said, oh my God. Are you talking about Mary? The Virgin Mary? I thought maybe they're Catholic. Like, no, no, Mother God. The lady actually handed me a pamphlet, and I handed her a pamphlet. And it was just a really interesting conversation that we had, you know, one morning at a drive-thru at McDonald's.

But you never know what happens when you evangelize and you share the gospel. You'll have funny stories like that. So I think that's about your question before we move on. Another issue. Yeah. Well, it's not the mother issue, but the...

Do you mind if I bring that up? Go for it. I guess, how do we bounce it off that we don't commit a similar mistake that the gentleman made weeks ago where all he has is a Bible and radio programs? Yeah.

That's a great question. You know, on one end, again, when you hold to sola scriptura, you hold to the infallibility of the scriptures, you've got to recognize that the scripture talks about God's people.

It talks about the church, the need of the church, our inclusion into the church. And so it's, you know, when you have what's called like the low Christian syndrome, you know, where it's just me and my Bible, me and my radio program, and I don't need the church.

The church hurt me. The church has done this, this, and that. The church has made a big, perfect human. You know, everyone's imperfect except them and their regular roles. You know? And what a sad way of living a Christian life.

You're actually living in disobedience. Because Lord commands us. He doesn't ask us, he doesn't, you know, barter with us to be together, to meet together, to be under the authority of the scriptures.

And so it's not something that we can walk back and say, well, we don't, the church is optional. The church is not optional. It's absolutely essential. Because we're members of it. And then we're members of it in the local sense.

When we enjoy ourselves to the local church. I think, like, Roman Catholics and even some evangelicals forget that sola scriptura doesn't mean that scripture is the only authority at all, you know? And you have to describe all the authorities.

It's the supreme authority. It's the supreme authority, but there's other authorities. That's right. That's right. I mean, the scripture says that pastors are the ones, that the shepherds who watch over so they're able to submit to them.

And so that means that there's a level of authority vested into pastors, the local church. There's an authority where we come together and have to be a team. All these things are to be weighed and considered rightly.

But it doesn't mean that the church itself becomes a thing that supersedes the scriptures or that it supersedes, you know, God's intended place for it. So the church has its proper place, of course, in the scriptures.

And we don't, the church doesn't supersede the scriptures in that way. So the church has its subject in the scriptures. Versus what the Roman Catholic view says is that, well, the Bible should because the church says so.

Or then where does the church get the authority to say such a thing, if not from the scriptures? Right? And actually, it's because they believe that it comes directly from God. That Christ is the representation of the church or that Christ is the literal head of that church.

And he's vested power, authority into the vicar of hope. And so that's where they get their authority from, is the vicar of Christ. So they supersede the Bible in that way, practically speaking. Any additional questions on that?

The Living Teaching Office and the Problem of Tradition

Okay, we're in our fourth chapter here in the book, Who Defines the Gospel? And one of the things I wanted to bring out to you, again, it's the, man. So in 2nd Attican, the second page of page 46, I want to read to you this quote from 2nd Attican.

There's a statement on the church authority and the interpretation of the word. Notice what it says. But the task of authentically interpreting the word of God, whether written or handed on, has been trusted exclusively to the living teaching office of the church, whose authority is exercised in the name of Jesus Christ.

This teaching office is not above the word of God, but serves it, teaching only what it has to be handed on, listening to it devotedly, regarding it scrupulously, and explaining it faithfully in accord with the divine commission, with the help of the Holy Spirit.

It draws from this one deposit of faith everything that is present for belief, as it is finally revealed. Notice what it continues to go on to say. It is clear, therefore, that the sacred tradition, the sacred scripture, and the teaching authority of the church in accord with God's most wise design, are so linked and joined together that one cannot stand without the other.

And that all together, each in its own way, under the action of the one Holy Spirit, contribute effectively to the salvation of souls. All right, again, a lot of jargon, but what a dangerous statement.

What's so dangerous about that statement? What's so dangerous about that statement to you? It's saying that God has enlightened it this way. You do? Absolutely. I'm going to share with you a quote from The Watchtower, just a little bit of that.

It's almost identical to that quote.

Any, any, yeah? And as Hartworth says, guarding it scrupulously, I guess that, I mean, that hides a lot of what it means to let people read and understand for themselves what it, what's prestigious.

Let's do a kind of a history 101. Let's look at the early environment to what led to the Reformation all the way back to Martin Luther in the 1500s. At that time, in the major language groups, English, German, and others, you know, if you went to a Roman Catholic church, you didn't come to church with a Bible.

There weren't Bibles in the pews. There was one Bible that was read by a priest. Oftentimes, priests didn't even have access to the Bible. The only time they could read the Bible was actually in seminary.

So oftentimes, they had to remember to, you know, memorize certain scriptures, because sometimes they themselves did not have it, okay? And when they did have it, it was in a dead language of Latin, of which the common people mostly could not read, know, or understand.

And so, in those days, the common person of faith was not allowed access to God's Word. Why? Because the Roman Catholic Church wanted to guard it against various interpretations, wanted to guard it against so much so that should you be caught with a Bible in a common language, do you know what the penalty would be?

Death by burning, burning at the stake. That's how serious of an offense it would be to own a Bible in the medieval times under the Roman Catholic rule. That brings into context why the church is so afraid of the Bible to be in the hands of the common man, right?

Do you have your hand up? Oh, yeah. Also, one of the problems they had, too, was that they were withholding the sacraments from the laity. So they weren't giving communion, or they weren't giving it really frequently at all, or they were giving half of it, you know, and they were withholding the sacraments from the people as well.

Yeah. And again, the church set itself up as the final beforety in these matters, and so, again, quite literally, if you want to believe something, it's because Rome told you so, right? So whatever Rome tells you, you believe that because they said so, and they know what's best for you.

Versus, what does the Bible teach? What does the Bible say? They couldn't even read the Bible. They couldn't even have it in their hand. It was not accessible to them. So one of the sins of Martin Luther was that he wanted the Bible to be accessible to everyone.

Yeah, I would add, you mentioned the Middle Ages. I know of at least one story in the late 1800s. You know, it went on like that, where people would be burning at the stake, or having the Bible in their own language, all the way, or, you know, some method of execution.

There'd be one heck of a way of excommunication. All the way through the 1800s. And a lot of people don't realize how recently it is that Rome formally allowed people to read the Bible in their own language.

You know, around that turn of the century, they couldn't enforce it anymore, but, yeah, it wasn't until, when?

The mid -1900s? In 1956, the council already said that you can have it in Ottoman.

Yeah, right, so mid -1900s here. A lot of people have no idea how recent in history this Roman Catholicism allowed people to read the Bible. That's right. Yeah, I mean, they instilled the blood of martyrs for hundreds of years.

And certainly, they did not want the Bible in the hands of the common people. For a reason. Yeah, we're going to get to some of the reasons. But I want to draw a comparison here to watch our organization, Jehovah's Witnesses.

Again, I sort of said to you earlier that Jehovah's Witnesses and Catholics, you can say that's moral enemies. Kind of a fun fact, actually. The previous pope who just died, Pope Benedict, his sister, you know, they were Germans.

They grew up in Nazi Germany. His sister was actually a devoted Jehovah's Witness. And he was the pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Pope Benedict's sister was a Jehovah's Witness. Very interesting how those two diverged.

But I think actually served the same false cause to some extent. I want to read to you, just to remind you of what we just read from these councils, Council of Friends and Second Vatican. And notice what the Jehovah's Witnesses say and teach.

All who want to understand the Bible should appreciate that really the first wisdom of God can become known only through Jehovah's channel of communication, the faithful and discreet soul. You see the similarities?

On one hand you see the Roman Catholic Church says, you can only know the Bible, this great wisdom of God, through the church. And Jehovah's Witnesses use the same language saying, you can only know this great wisdom of God through Jehovah's channel of communication, i .e. the watchdog.

They also said this, only this organization functions for Jehovah's purpose and to his praise. To it alone, God's sacred word, the Bible, is not a sealed book. So to them, they think that all of Christians who read the Bible, that they're reading it as like a sealed book.

They can't understand it. There's all these interpretations. That's why all these churches and denominations. And that's a similar thing that Romans. Romans says the same thing. They say, well, look at you Protestants.

You know, have you ever heard a Roman Catholic say there's 18 ,000 denominations of Protestants? You ever heard that? Yeah. They say more. They say like 40. It's like, how much is it now up there, up to?

They say like 43 ,000. Yeah. You know where they get that number though? It's actually a pretty bogus number, but you know where they get it from? No. No? Does every non-denominational church count as a denomination?

Yeah. So basically, yeah. So basically they do. Everything that's incorporated, that's not part of a mainline church, they incorporate that as a denomination. So it could be a little storefront church with 12 people, and that's an entire denomination in mind.

It's a bogus number. You know, realistically, there are about maybe 30 or so real mainline denominations of Protestants. But yeah, to get to just like 34 ,000, it's just ridiculous. They're counting anything that's appropriate that's not part of a mainline denomination.

But oftentimes, even those churches have some resemblance or kind of DNA that's traced back to one of these mainline denominations. It's mostly within Baptist circles and Catholic circles, you know, just independent fundamentalist groups.

They all do share common DNA with something that's bigger than they are, but they just don't incorporate it. So that's how they get to those bogus numbers. Yeah, there's not actually 34 ,000 Christian denominations.

I mean, I dare you to name more than, you know, 20. You can't.

You probably can't. So any thoughts or questions on that? Yeah.

I know we're dealing with religious groups, but if you don't want to force a bylaw on secular professors, I guess what's the authority, I guess what's the fault of the secularists? I don't believe in the Lord Jesus Christ.

No, no, no. I mean, what's their authority? What's that? Themselves. What's their authority? Yeah. Well, of course it's going to be themselves, right? You know, if you look at secularists and people like Parker Ehrman, who is a apostate who believed in evangelical doctrine and then reverted to or became an apostate and turned against the scriptures, and he's the authority, right?

So if you hear his podcast, you'll hear this stuff. He said, well, I'm a scholar. I know what I'm talking about, right? That's how you, essentially he says, I'm the authority. Just shut up and listen to me.

I've done the research. So they become the authority of themselves. So it's this elastic mindset becomes the authority as well. This trust in liberalism becomes the authority, right? So the secularism is a religion of a type.

It is a type of religion. So, yes, John? It seems the sin of this type of belief would be rooted in pride. Would you agree? Absolutely. No doubt. I'm just recalling when I was dating my wife 35 years ago.

We were at a meeting. She was involved with a church that was Armenian, but there was a split taking place. There were some in the church reading Al Martin's stuff and saying, no, we're wrong the way we're reading this.

So there was a click going on. She got involved with that click. And one of the pastors, when I was meeting her, met with one of these Bible studies to see what was being taught about Al Martin's premises and stuff.

And he confronted me about wanting to marry Césaire. And he says, after our conversation about free will and God's sovereignty, he finally said, he got really flustered. And he said, I'm an analyst, and I know.

And that was supposed to end the conversation. OK, I realized, don't go any further with it. I didn't press it. I said, OK, we're going to have to agree to disagree. But his reason for his assertion was that, really, his understanding as an analyst, I can only see that as pride.

That's right. I love a guy or a person who is confident in their interpretation of scripture. I love that. Even if I'm wrong, I appreciate people's confidence. I've got a friend, my mentor, Sam Felder.

He's a Texan Baptist. And he is as sure as anyone can be that Babylon the Great is the city of London. And I'm like, I don't think that's right, man. But hey. And he's certain that it is. And he looks at you with these eyes like, you just don't know.

It's like, you're glib. You don't know. But he's certain that it's that. And I was like, I think you're wrong. But I really appreciate your enthusiasm. So you've got to appreciate folks like that sometimes.

But also pray for them and help them interpret the scriptures right. And it comes down to this, really, is how and who gets to interpret scripture. Right? If the Roman Catholic Church is, you guys are a mess.

And that's what I think was the part of page 48, the subheading. But look at the mess you're in. And what was meant by that? What was meant by that? Yeah. Look at you guys. You can't agree on anything.

You Christians, you don't have any unity. You have no cohesiveness. There's no overarching consensus on very important topics. Which I would actually disagree with. I think that for the majority of Christians, we do have overarching consensuses of the big things.

Such as the gospel, Jesus Christ, his humanity, his divinity, the trinity, the resurrection. There's so many things that we own in common as a Christian people. And it's when we get into the great things that we begin to have disagreements and conversations.

Most of which I would say, again, if we're talking about born-again Christians, we're talking about in-house debates. We're talking about in-house conversations. We can have differences of opinion with our Presbyterian brothers.

We can have differences of opinion with other Methodists. And there are other groups that we can consider brothers and sisters in the Lord. And have serious theological dialogue where we disagree. But also rejoice in having people together in our common faith.

And I think that's what people, you know, in the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, and the Roman Catholics. Again, I would consider them Catholic because it follows the same pattern. And Jehovah's Witnesses follow the same authority pattern as Roman Catholicism.

And what they can't understand is that how can you have unity without conformity? Right? They say, listen, we believe in the same, all Roman Catholics believe the same thing. We're all worshiping the same way every Sunday in Mass.

It's the same thing with Jehovah's Witnesses. Every Sunday, Jehovah's Witnesses gather. They are singing the same songs. They're reading the same Watchtower magazine. And they're, you know, examining the same information at the same time.

In all the congregations of Jehovah's Witnesses. All 39 ,000 congregations. And the Catholics say the same thing. Look, we've got this cohesiveness. We're all in the same cage. But I don't think conformity is indicative of unity.

What do you think? Is uniformity or conformity necessary for unity? I get a little bit sunk on this. Because, I mean, you know, you can pass it as, like, we have one mind. Why don't you work that out, man?

Work that out. That's a great scripture. 1 Corinthians chapter 1, verse 10. Yes. There's some conformity. Not in the ways that, you know, these folks say. But it's like conforming yourself to the image of Christ.

Yes. And, you know, when Christ talks about the body, there being different members. And, you know, I think they kind of want every member to be the same, you know, blueprint. They all want to be the mouth.

Yeah. That's a great analogy. That's 1 Corinthians chapter 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 talks about there being many members. But there is one body. And that every member serves the same function. And so there is diversity in the body of Christ.

It's not just uniformity where we all have to conform to the same thing every single way up to plenty. There is a great diversity. And a diversity is a strength of the church, not a weakness. Yeah.

I was going to say something similar about the body. But also it seems like part of God's design for us not just to be like fallible creatures, but also very changeable. You know, our life spans are relatively short.

We've got so many years of maturing before we understand these things. And so even in a really healthy set of people, everyone is going to be a different level of understanding. No one is going to be able to have a perfect conformity with each other by design, even in the best of circumstances.

And I think that's how God wants it for us to be different and encourage each other. Amen.

I think it would be important if we examined some of the verses in the 1 Corinthians chapter 12 being incurred there. There are certainly areas in which we have to conform, obviously. And I think Paul starts that off when he's talking about spiritual gifts in chapter 12, starting in verse 3.

He shows what are some of the commonalities that we must have. He says in verse 3, Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the spirit of God ever says Jesus is a curse. And no one can say Jesus is Lord except in the Holy Spirit.

So what Paul is saying is, listen, we have to have the majors in common. The fact that Jesus is Lord, we can't even go beyond. We can't talk about all these other matters unless we agree on this aspect.

That Jesus is Lord. So before we even go to spiritual gifts, we have to have this common ground, this conformity of doctrine in relation to who Jesus is. But then he says, But there are a variety of gifts of the same Spirit.

There are varieties of service with the same Lord. There are varieties of activities, but it's the same God who empowers them all and everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

And that manifestation of the Spirit being various gifts, so they're not all the same. You have some of this stuff in the charismatic circles, too, where you have some charismatic groups that say all have to speak in tongues.

That's not what Paul says. Paul says, Do all speak in tongues? No. And so the diversity, again, is a strength in the economy of God's people. It's not a weakness. It's a strength. And then he goes on to say all the way down in verse 12.

It just says, The body is one and has many members. And all the members of the body, though many, are one body. So it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, were all made to drink of the one Spirit.

But it says, For the body does not consist of one member, but of many. And the foot should say, Because I am not a hand, do I not belong to the body? That would not make it any less part of the body. So, again, this analogy of body parts.

Your hands don't have the same function as the feet. Your brain doesn't have the same function as the heart. These are all things that are independent but working together cohesively. Right? If you were just one big blocking brain, that wouldn't really work out well.

Diversity is needed for life. Diversity is needed for the living organism of the church. Yes, ma 'am. I kind of see it two in balance. That's why I say I don't believe in this word. There's like really right-wing ministries where if you don't vote red, it doesn't look good.

But at the same time, you have people going vote. So it's like…. And then when election season comes around, we always see a splinter. So how does the church remain unified? We say unified even in the midst of political division because our unity is not dependent on both forms.